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Retail Report: Shrimp sales post slight uptick
Category accounts for one-third of seafood department sales
March 01, 2009
Shrimp is America's favorite seafood, as evidenced by
per-capita consumption rates nearly doubling in the past 25
years, to reach 4.1 pounds-per-capita in 2007, according to the
National Fisheries Institute. Shrimp was the second-largest
category in the seafood department, accounting for 29.2 percent
of seafood department sales during the 52 weeks ending Nov. 29,
2008.
Nationally, weekly shrimp sales (including raw and cooked
shrimp) averaged $1,619 per store, a 0.5 percent increase from
the previous year, making shrimp second in weekly sales below
No. 1 finfish. Raw shrimp posted $903 in weekly sales per
store, a 2.7 percent increase from the previous year, while
cooked shrimp was down 2.2 percent at $716 in average weekly
sales.
The shrimp category had above-average dollar sales for the
weeks ending Dec. 15, 2007, through Jan. 5, 2008, and peaked at
$3,126 per store the week ending Dec. 29, 2007, nearly double
the annual average. The week prior to and after posted the
second and third highest averages, with $2,628 and $2,466,
respectively.
Shrimp posted above-average weekly sales in five out of the
seven weeks during Lent, which ran from Feb. 6 to March 23 last
year. Shrimp had the lowest average weekly
sales performance
in the weeks ending Oct. 25 and Nov. 1, with $1,246 and $1,245,
respectively.
Average weekly sales were up from the prior year in the
South and West regions, increasing 2.8 percent and 0.7 percent,
respectively. While the East region ranked first in weekly
dollar sales per store at $2,419, it declined 1.6 percent in
the last 52 weeks. The Central region also experienced declines
in average weekly shrimp sales, down 2.8 percent. Shrimp sales
in both the South and the West outpaced the total United States
in seafood department sales, contributing 30.6 percent and 29.3
percent, respectively. Rounding out the regions were the East
and Central, where shrimp contributed 27.7 percent each to
total seafood sales.
Nationally, raw shrimp accounted for 55.8 percent of total
shrimp sales during the last 52 weeks, followed by cooked
shrimp at 44.2 percent. Nationally, 51-99 count bags accounted
for 23 percent of total shrimp sales, followed by 31-40s at 20
percent, 26-30s at 15 percent, 16-20s at 12 percent, 41-50s at
10 percent, 21-25s at 8 percent, 100+ at 6 percent and U-10s at
4 percent.